“Un(en)titled”

In memory of Joan Mackenzie (1941 – 2004)

“By presenting this retrospective collection of my late wife’s art, I am proudly demonstrating, once more, the enduring quality of her work and its timeless relevance to today’s, recurrent, land and entitlement issues.”

James Mackenzie, 2019

Artist Statement

“Un(en)titled” – cardboard, wire and foil printing plate.

“Concepts underlying my work are interwoven. I have looked at the historical context of the origins of the panorama as a mass medium, specifically in relation to the contentious issue of ownership of land. A parallel can be drawn between the history of the panorama and colonialism, specifically with regard to the contentious issue of land. Issues with regard to ownership of land stem from the very first ‘fences’ and ‘hedges’ that Van Riebeeck erected, the various Occupations of the Cape, through to the 1913 Land Act and more recent Forced Removals – the consequences of which are currently being negotiated through the Land Claims Court…” Read More

Joan Mackenzie, 1999

In the 1990’s, Joan Mackenzie unearthed a 1950’s, railway worker’s, “free” ticket, coupled with a “white”, political pamphlet, that the worker had penciled over with a sum that he just could not add up.

These three elements encapsulated a time in a land, where “culturally conditioned” people possessed a mindset that would never “add up”.

For the artist, finding that railway ticket initiated a chiasm*, through a series of metaphorical journeys, that encompassed crossing the “fenced” boundaries of time and memory, along with textually traversing and depicting the physical panoramas of a “fenced”, colonised land; excavation of that land would reveal, not only irresistible, pyroclastic forces at work on the strata, but historical evidence of equally overwhelming political forces on the surface, inciting the pogroms and removals of “un(en)titlement”.

*Chiasm: intersections of personal memory, myth and historical fact.

James Mackenzie, 2019

Articles and Press Release

Opening Event

On Friday 01 March, we opened ‘un(en)titled’ with a good turnout of friends, colleagues and fellow artists, who came to honour the memory of Joan Mackenzie. The conceptual nature of this emotive exhibition earmarks yet another first for The Studio Art Gallery.

Surveying my immediate environment, Fish Hoek Valley, with its beach at one end and Peers Cave set midway between the Indian and Atlantic Oceans, I focussed in on the prehistoric tool as a metaphor for going through the layers of searching history (the brain and book as tool), surveying the environment (mapping and the camera), excavating the land (meaning) - in order to talk about land issues and culture. This leads to the impact that propaganda has when it is used as a tool, to subjugate and divide people, playing on their fears and emotions. However, modern technology, as a tool empowers people by providing access to information and eroding the very fabric of time.

Concepts underlying my work are interwoven. I have looked at the historical context of the origins of the panorama as a mass medium, specifically in relation to the contentious issue of ownership of land. A parallel can be drawn between the history of the panorama and colonialism, specifically with regard to the contentious issue of the land. Issues, with regard to ownership of land, stem from the very first "fences" and "hedges" that Van Riebeeck erected, the various Occupations of the Cape, through to the 1913 Land Act and more recent Forced Removals - the consequences of which are still, today, being negotiated through the Land Claims Court. GC Spivak talks about the tremendous complexity of postcolonial space and refers to 'retrospective hallucinations'.

My work is a chiasm - intersections of personal memory, myth and historical fact. It is panoramic, not in the sense of an all-encompassing "view", but in a fragmented sense, as a metaphor for our late 20th-century condition, where our multicultural world can only be understood in fragments. To achieve this, I went through a process of collecting various images and stories from local archives, myths and my environment. I have attempted to fuse these fragments, much like molten lava pouring over the earth's surface. The notion of panorama can also be used to negotiate the politics of the late 20th-century discourse, in particular, the disintegration of a binding view and our present understanding of a place as fragmented and discontinuous. Contemporary concerns with "place" today stem from debates around issues of centrality, periphery and difference.

The concept of Time is particularly relevant - the historical linear as opposed to geological and/or myth / cyclic concepts of time. Apollinaire invited poets and artists to "come to the edge and fly". As process played a major part of my working methodology and induced a sense of reverie, (which Chaucer as a state of delight), I have worked in a variety of media in order to convey both my emotions and my impressions. Donald Kuspit says that collage demonstrates how the many become the one, with the one never fully resolved(!), because of the many, that continue to impinge upon it.

Working this way means that the destructive and regenerative forces of nature can become a tool to access the wilder side of our mind - the fantastical or fanciful. TS Eliot, in "Dark Embryo", speaks of the brain (as being) female to the soul. His recurrent concern is with a negative state of mind - "negative capability" or "inspiration'. Text plays an important part in my work. Umberto Eco talks about painting being a complex text, not a sign - in other words, his "fuzzy signs". Derrida refers to the value of crossed - out words.

As can be seen, my work started with engraving words onto fragments of slate, drawing on medical gauze dressings and experimenting with collograph prints.

I have made a series of 12 collograph and two kallitype prints. I have used words, created from sandpaper, for embossing, words made from wire and various other combinations of materials on the blocks. The text is engraved into lead wire strips which have been embedded in the frames. The collograph process seemed to be particularly relevant to my theme of impressions on the land.

Earlier experiments with white concrete slabs and collograph prints led me to produce my series of 'White Writing - Blueprints", where I used the cyanotype process to make the images. I felt that this early photographic process of coating slabs with chemicals, exposing it to the sum and then washing the slab, seemed appropriate to the underlying concept of work. This series was inspired by a small political pamphlet dating from the 1950s and is evocative of the era of my own childhood. it reflects the cultural conditioning in the South African panorama, where individuals were often the victims of the historical and ideological conditioning of the society. In the late 1990s, emphasis by Right - Wing movements on "group rights" and fears regarding the issue of "land" still divided our society. The broken engraved slates started off as the word "land' in our eleven official languages. In this post-colonial, post-apartheid era, the hunger for land hovers over everything like a spectre. Molten lead fuses together particles or fragments; much like molten lava. By making a negative from the positive images on the pamphlet, I was able to achieve the "white" writing necessary to reinforce the meaning of the work. TS Eliot's chorus, from "Murder in the Cathedral', echoes the process and reinforces the need for reconciliation in our society.

Artists, like Anselm Kiefer and Joseph Beuys, both say art as a theoretical antidote for the terror of human history and the failure of mythic figures. Merleau - Ponty talks about the means for art to touch history and history to touch art.

The frayed panel, incorporating collographed images on medical gauzes, talks about man as tool, but at the same time refers to man using the tools of technology like computers and the Internet.

Joan Mackenzie 1999

Note: The word "land", translated into the other ten official languages, appears on the "pyroclastic", slate fragments artwork